Trey nods sharply.
“Sometimes people get hold of stuff they shouldn’t have. Then they sell it on.”
“Brendan’s not a thief.”
“Shut up and listen, kid. I’m not saying he is. What I’m saying is, sometimes it might take these people a while to find buyers. While they’re looking, they need somewhere to store the stuff. Somewhere secure and out of the way, so no one’s gonna stumble on it by mistake, and the cops won’t find it unless they know exactly where to look. If these guys find the right place, run by someone reliable who’s gonna keep their stuff safe, they’ll pay decent rent.”
“Like a warehouse.”
“Yeah. Exactly like. And a place like here, not too far from the border, this is prime territory. Brendan saw a gap in the market, and he realized his hideout was the perfect place to fill it. All he needed to do was fix it up some, and get in touch with people who’d use it.”
Trey evaluates this. Apparently she can fit this level of shadiness into her idea of Brendan. She nods.
“So Brendan started fixing the place up. Maybe he even got a couple of local guys using it, here and there, but they’d be too small-time to be much use to him. He needed to land some bigger fish.”
“The lads from Dublin,” Trey says.
“This part’s where Donie got a little hazy on the details,” Cal says. “No one’s gonna tell a dumbass like him more than they need to; he just got given the general gist of what went down. Best he can tell, Brendan waited till the Dublin boys were in town and asked them to put him in touch with people who might want his services. They were interested, but there was a little bit of disagreement among them about Brendan’s operation. Some of them thought he’d be an asset, but some of them thought he’d be more of a liability. From what I can gather, they’re planning on running something of their own up those mountains, and they didn’t want Brendan and his clients drawing police attention in that direction.”
“Guys like that,” Trey says. She doesn’t finish.
“Yeah,” Cal says. “You don’t want to piss them off. Brendan probably shoulda taken that possibility into account, but from what I’ve been told, he had a tendency to get carried away and forget to factor in other people’s reactions. That sound right to you?”
Trey nods. Cal spent half the night smoothing the edges on this story and looking it over from different angles, making sure it holds together and incorporates all the pieces Trey has possession of. There are little holes here and there, but nothing that would make it fall apart under pressure. It has enough truth in it to act as glue. There’s even a chance, and what a trip that would be, that with a few minor substitutions this hinky story is accidentally true.
“So,” he says, “Brendan set up a meeting with them, thinking he was gonna pay them for a bunch of phone numbers and everyone would go away happy. By the time the meeting came around, though, the ones that thought he was a liability had shouted down the rest. They told him to get out of town and stay gone.”
“Just told him to leave,” Trey says. Her breath is coming fast and shallow. “They didn’t take him? For definite?”
“Nah. What would they want him for? All they wanted from him was to get out of their hair, and he did that himself, right quick. He had more sense than to hang around till he got told again.”
“So that’s why he went. Not ’cause he wanted to.”
“That’s right,” Cal says. “He didn’t have a choice.”
A hard breath comes out of Trey and her eyes skid away, one place and then another. The thought of Brendan walking out without a word, because he wanted to, has been eating her raw and bloody for months. Now that it’s gone, she can’t take in the clear space where it used to be.
Cal lets her be. After a minute she asks, “Where’d he go?”
“Donie’s not sure. He thinks Scotland, for whatever that’s worth. He says the boys didn’t take any cash off Brendan, so he shoulda had enough to get him somewhere and get him set up. And if he’s got sense, he won’t be back for a while.”
Trey says, coming down heavy on the words, “But he’s alive.”
“Far as anyone knows. No guarantees—he coulda fallen off the boat on the way over, or got hit by a car, same as anyone could. But there’s no reason to think he’s anything but.”
“Then why didn’t he ring? Even once, let us know he was OK?”
The question forces its way out against her will. This is the other half of what’s been gnawing her to the bones. She wanted Brendan kidnapped because that would have been fixable.
“These are pretty scary guys, kid,” Cal says gently. “My guess is, Brendan knows you well enough to figure that if you got any smell of what went down, you might go trying to fix things so he could come home. And that would’ve just made the situation worse. For him and you both. He liked to protect you, right?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“That’s what he was doing. If you want to do the same for him, the best thing you can do is trust him and stick to what he wanted you to do. Pull in your horns, keep your mouth shut and go about your business till he figures it’s safe to come home.”
Trey looks at him for another long minute. Then she says, “Thanks.” She turns back to the table and starts sanding again, very carefully and very neatly.
Cal goes back to his toothbrush and his soapy water, even though the desk is already as clean as he can get it. Trey doesn’t say another word, so neither does he. Their side of the mountains has darkened, its great shadow bleeding across the fields towards them, by the
